Take the plunge

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is his fifth film in 38 years (what a lazybones!) and travels way beyond what I can think about, or any of us can think about, which may be its point.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is his fifth film in 38 years (what a lazybones!) and travels way beyond what I can think about, or any of us can think about, which may be its point. How are we here? Why are we here? In what way do the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ connect, if they do? I know. Exhausting. And although people say you should not watch a Malick film as you do other films, that you should immerse yourself in it as if it were a meditative experience, I simply don’t know how you are meant to accomplish this. Are there evening classes? Self-help books? But — and this is a big ‘but’, so pay attention — even though you have to work so devilishly hard at this, and work at it while Malick is probably still in bed (such a lazybones!), and even though it is grandiose and humourless and preposterous it is also fantastically fresh, rich and fascinating.

Let’s put it another way: two and a half hours of Terrence Malick goes by a lot quicker than 90 minutes of Larry Crowne, and I understood every word and frame of that. (Ditto Transformers 3 and Kung Fu Panda 2 and all the other interminable rubbish I have to sit through while checking my watch hasn’t actually stopped, and cursing the day I was born.)

This film is fragmentary and not linear — wouldn’t you be more surprised if it were? — and is partly a visual essay on the evolution of the universe (yes, really), partly a coming-of-age story, and partly a study of nature which, I think, gives us enough to be getting on with. You want more? OK, it’s also a philosophical contemplation on religion. Happy now?

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James Murphy

July 15th, 2011 8:38pm Report this comment

Malick's film "travels way beyond what I can think about, or any of us can think about, which may be its point." - Nicely put, M'am! Shall see this ASAP. Also loved his 'Badlands' in a weird alienated kind of a way. Days of Heaven, too, full of beauteous images. Genuinely interesting film maker: a rare breed in Hollywood.

James Murphy

July 18th, 2011 6:16pm Report this comment

Why doesn't anyone else ever comment on the film reviews? Come on you Philistines! This is the master-medium of the age for gawd's sake!

James Murphy

July 24th, 2011 6:36pm Report this comment

Saw Tree of Life last night. A work of flawed genius, I think. Utterly emotionally absorbing at times, narratively flimsy at others. Not that I mind a departure from straight-forward narrative when necessary. Indeed, I felt Malick's resort to an entirely imagistic, non-verbal half an hour into the movie, after the death of the couple's son, was absolutely mesmerising. In the meditation on nature's power, he seemed to say that grief is primitive, timeless and elemental. An undeniable truth. Malick's brilliant art is to make us confront that truth whilst also providing a means - Art - of redemption from it. May I humbly echo the Spectator's esteemed critic and exhort readers to go and see this film as soon as they can. It changes one.

magnolia

July 26th, 2011 11:58am Report this comment

But perhaps we do not WISH to be changed? I am starting to feel I'd rather not see this film even though it sounds wonderful. Not because I might not like it, but because I might prefer to have my own epiphanies (or not), without the assistance of film crews and production teams. There's a sense in which brilliant films are, at another level, crutches for those who can't do that kind of thinking or feeling on their own.

James Murphy

July 27th, 2011 8:56pm Report this comment

What? Do not wish to be changed? Then verily you must be perfect, Magnolia. why else would you be content to stay as you are? As for epiphanies I'm not proud: I'll get them any way I can where art is concerned. Call it a crutch if you like, but we're all in some sense handicapped by our incapacity to feel, see, experience the truth. It is the genius of man's invention of Art that it raises us up and restores us and makes us whole, or at least more whole than we were. Think again, O flower of the East!

camber vanbrugh

July 27th, 2011 8:57pm Report this comment

Er, Magnolia, fortunately for the human race, the great potential of works of art is that, if we genuinely commune with them, we might perhaps access their transformative power. In doing so, we edge towards our own creativity! Surely we should gravitate to the most beautiful work of others, in whatever art form it arrives at our door: god knows, they are few and far between. After all, Michaelangelo had quite a few technicians assisting him with the logistics of painting the Sistine Chapel - will that stop you from admiring his overall vision? Mallick's vision dominates "The Tree Of Life" - that is why it is worth seeing.

Janet Terth

July 27th, 2011 11:30pm Report this comment

Deborah, you are one polite lass. I would rather take a plunge off the Empire State Building than ever submit to the torture of seeing this pretentious stinkeroo again. Palme d'Or winner? So much for French taste. Pauline Kael was right decades ago when she refused to even review BADLANDS -- which, compared to this mess, is a masterpiece. A real masterpiece? Visit http://tributetoamaster.com/.

magnolia

July 28th, 2011 1:59pm Report this comment

james murphy, camber vanbrugh, thank you for your insights. I'm sure I'm not perfect. The thing about static art (such as Michaelangelo's) is that the viewer completes it with his/her consciousness. Even the best and most beautiful paintings need a viewer's intelligence to be "completed" in this way. SOME movies have that quality. Others are so rich that, in a certain sense, they rob the viewer of the need to make an effort.

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